There is debauchery galore in Disney's decidedly un-kid-friendly adaptation of a British romance novel. But how sexy is it?
In Sex Reviews, writers offer a sober critical assessment of the sex scenes in new films and television series. This installment contains spoilers for Rivals.
One clue that Rivals -- a soapy, funny, surprisingly sweet adaptation of a 1988 book by Dame Jilly Cooper, the first season of which is now available on Disney+ and Hulu -- would be a good Sex Reviews candidate is the fact that it's set in the fictional British county of "Rutshire." And sure enough, roughly 80 percent of the ensemble cast in this delicious story about aristocrats, jumped-up new money, and smoldering Irish TV stars competing over a commercial television franchise in Margaret Thatcher's Britain gets a sex scene, or at least a drawn-out intrigue. (The other 20 percent are children, or dogs.)
We have an age-gap slow-burn storyline between a rake and an ingénue, spy-on-spy sex between said rake and a rival producer whose secrets he's trying to steal, and a very sweet middle-aged romance between a tech mogul and a romance writer, both of whom are criminally overlooked by their own spouses. But the dominant vibe of Rivals is just: Turn the corner at any moment, and someone will be there, getting off. How does this show balance all these lustily spinning plates? Below, Slate culture writer Nadira Goffe and senior editor Rebecca Onion break it down.
Rebecca Onion: It makes great sense for a show that is so firmly situated in the 1980s to open up with a shot of the Concorde streaking across the sky, about to go supersonic, and the Robert Palmer song "Addicted to Love" kicking in on the soundtrack. And for a show with an attitude toward sex that's more funny than dreamy, it makes even better sense that the next shot is Rupert Campbell-Black's butt flexing as he joins the mile-high club for what is most definitely not the first time. (Campbell-Black -- the show's biggest fuckboy, an aristocrat and former Olympic show jumper, and a minister in Thatcher's government, besides -- is played by Alex Hassell, whose hooded eyes and insouciant glances get the idea across quite nicely.)
The lady, who turns out to be a cutthroat gossip columnist, Beattie Johnson (Annabel Scholey), is pleased, and even more so when Rupert reaches his hand between them to help her over the edge, just as the flight attendants coach the passengers to count down the time until the plane goes supersonic. Welcome to Rivals. Beattie pounds her hand onto the soap dispenser in pleasure so that globs of hand soap spout into the sink as she shrieks. This show is not subtle!
I'm curious if you find this ... sexy? It's funny, but I'm not sure it's sexy! I'm sure we will talk about this throughout, but this opening salvo is a great setup for the question.
Nadira Goffe: I certainly wasn't hot and bothered by the opening scene of Rivals, but I was immediately invested. I like a show that's not subtle, that deals mostly in overtones, and this was clearly going to fit that bill from the first moment. It's not sexy, no. But I think it's a great example of show-don't-tell -- Rupert is solidified as an unruffled rake and Beattie as a journalist who really likes to, erm, needle her subjects.
Nadira: Of course, to piece together the full vision of the chessboard that is the relationships among these ambitious Cotswolds elites, we need a clear picture of who's in bed with whom. We get just that toward the end of the first episode in the form of a montage of the various bedfellows of Rutshire getting busy. There's star journalist Declan (Aidan Turner) and his wife Maud (Victoria Smurfit), who assuage all of their marital tension by going at it against a wall with a full view of Declan's bare backside; the snobby MP Paul (Rufus Jones) giving it to his less-than-pleased social-climbing young wife Sarah (Emily Atack) from behind; network employee Charles (Gary Lamont) going down on his colleague Gerald (Hubert Burton); Valerie (Lisa McGrillis) straddling her magnate husband, Freddie (Danny Dyer), while looking more satisfied by the romance on TV in front of her than the man underneath her; network CEO Tony (David Tennant) dropping trou in front of (surprise!) his new producer Cameron (Nafessa Williams), who lies naked in bed, only partially covered by silky red sheets. We finally have the lay of the land as all of the partners (save Valerie and Sarah) orgasm in a supercut of climaxes. Surprisingly, Rupert is the only one not canoodling in this montage.
I'll turn this back on you, Rebecca: I'm wondering if you found this ... hot? I think some aspects of it are, certainly -- Declan and Maud, for sure -- but I found this to be more useful as a form of exposition to showcase the allegiances of the show at this point in time.
Rebecca: Aidan Turner has been an apple of my eye since he was Ross Poldark, and this show, in which he plays the only husband who stays faithful to his wife (if only because he's such a workaholic), has me doubling down on him. So yes -- I am a sucker for Maud and Declan, and found that scene hot, even though Maud is pretty awful.
The rest of the montage is a very efficient way of foreshadowing what's going to happen in the rest of the show, sexually speaking. The couples who are having half-hearted sex (Valerie and Freddie; Sarah and Paul) are clearly in trouble. Neither of those ladies is even bothering to fake it! And I loved the way that the montage leaves Rupert out, showing him instead at his huge mansion with his pack of beloved dogs. He has a lot of sex in this show, but the heart of the character, this montage shows, is going to be something else.
Rebecca: Poor Daysee (Lara Peake). She is some kind of a young assistant producer at Corinium, the TV network run by Tony, and she is very, very eager to make something of herself. I say "poor" because she gets two sex scenes: This one, in which an intoxicated aging actor rails her in a storage room before his appearance on Declan's talk show, and a truly awful rape scene in Episode 7 that mostly serves to establish how terrible Tony (who doesn't stand up for his employee because her rapist is politically important) can be. Here in the storage room, at least, she seems to be having a medium-OK time, if only because she can't believe she's having sex with Hollywood star Johnny Friedlander. I did laugh out loud when he offers her a drink, mid-sex, and she demurs, saying, "I'm working."
Nadira: "Poor Daysee" is right. I love her ambition and that she doesn't give up even though she spends the entire show being underappreciated and underestimated by the people she works for. And yes, I loved her protesting a drink while screwing an actor coming off of the brink of being a has-been. But everything else that she endures is some varying level of disheartening to downright traumatizing and horrific -- and, unlike every single other player in this show, she's the only one who fails to obtain a modicum of professional or personal gain from her sexual encounters. My heart breaks for her!
Nadira: High off of the smashing success of the first episode of his talk show, Declan returns home to Maud, who is tickling the ol' ivories. Maud seems to be lost in a delicious thought as she plays, which could have something to do with the sweet slow dance she shared with Rupert earlier in the evening while Declan was on air. We find out that the reason the O'Haras left London was because Maud had an affair with another man, setting the context for just how far she might be willing to go with Rupert. Regardless of whoever's touch Maud might be wistful for as she plays the piano, it's Declan's that she gets as he sticks his hand up her skirt. Maud was certainly ready for some action -- "Christ, you're wet," Declan remarks with his hand between her thighs -- and her response is a claim that she was waiting for Declan all evening. But was she? Or is she more hot and bothered by the idea of ensnaring Rupert's affections in the near future? Either way, the married couple make out on top of the piano before the scene cuts away.
I love the relationship between Declan and Maud, because I love how tenuous it is despite the fact that it has every reason to be an incredibly grounded connection. At any given point throughout the show, you're wondering if Declan will, again, choose work over the wishes of his wife -- and if his wife will choose the attention of another man because of it. But, God, there are moments where Aidan Turner -- whom I have loved in everything I have seen him in prior -- looks so enraptured with Maud, like he just remembered he was in love, that you feel this couple might actually make it out all right. He gives one of those looks when Maud is playing the piano, and follows it up with his signature ability to raise the temperature in a room with just a few brief words in his sultry Irish lilt. We get the sense that Maud is unhappy in her marriage for several reasons, but hell, after this scene, even I would marry Declan O'Hara.
Rebecca: Maud is a one-note character, to me -- an aging actress who is desperate for any sign that people still see her as beautiful and desirable. (She would totally take The Substance.) And she's mean to her daughter Taggie (Bella Maclean), who is dyslexic and surely doesn't need all the little comments Maud makes about her not being able to read! You get the sense Maud is ragingly jealous of her youth. So it's a little hard for me to enjoy anything involving Maud making out with Declan, but I did love the way the camera lingered on the expanding folds in her knife-pleated skirt while she opened her legs. This show has good clothes in it!
Rebecca: At a dinner party at Freddie and Valerie's house, Rupert and Sarah, who are having an affair, have sex on a bed in a guest room. It's neither here nor there, sex-wise -- they are just doing it missionary, and although Sarah seems pleased, it seems a little rote -- but the important part is Taggie, who's developed a little crush on Rupert, spying on the couple through a slightly open door. Rupert looks up and sees her. Uh-oh! Now pure, inexperienced Taggie has to run downstairs and stand against a wall looking flushed and bothered. This is very good slow-burn romance-novel stuff here.
Nadira: God, this is such a classic romance-novel move that I had to laugh! However, I love Taggie. I love that she still dedicates herself to the people around her, and her family, even though it's as if they take turns to decide who will disappoint or mistreat her next. She needs to let off a little steam! She needs a fantasy beyond the kitchen and her mother's dismissive comments. So she plays Peeping Tom on Rupert and Sarah for a minute too long, who cares! It is the only interesting part about Rupert and Sarah's affair.
Nadira: Hoping to seduce Rupert, Maud throws a huge New Year's Eve party at the O'Haras' house, leaving Taggie to (somehow?) cook all the food. At the end of the night, the Joneses and the Baddinghams go looking for their children on the upstairs floors so they can leave, but instead find Tony's brother Bas (Luke Pasqualino) having a four-way with three women. Tony commends his younger sibling for his "delightfully ambitious" efforts, a compliment Bas accepts before hilariously noticing his party of entangled bodies involves more people than he thought. "Oh, God, Felicity. I didn't see you down there!"
It's a perfectly delivered comedic line that I'll be thinking about even once the show is finished. It's so nice to see Luke Pasqualino here in Rivals, having fun as the comedic relief bestie to Rupert and li'l bro to Tony, when my last memory of him was falling in love with his character in the British teen TV series Skins. His performance on Skins culminated in a plot ending that traumatized an entire generation, but his role in Rivals is truly a delight. I love Bas! And I loved this very funny moment.
Rebecca: I never watched Skins so some of the extratextual meaning is lost on me, but I love Bas too. And I thought this scene was so funny. These people looked like a rat king, pulsing on that guest room bed. I was pausing on it, trying to figure out which body was which, so I can't blame Bas for the oversight! Like the Concorde bathroom scene, a great encapsulation of this show's very excessive tendency to excess.
Rebecca: As the guests leave the party, Maud and Declan meet in their bedroom and have it out about her attempts to catch Rupert's eye. Maud lights into Declan again about him always being gone, not paying attention to her, and so on. "I used to be fucking beautiful," she says. Being a good husband, he says, "You still are!" then offers: "How would you have liked him to touch you?" Again, Maud doesn't do it for me, but seeing naked and gorgeous Aidan Turner kneel over her on the bed and finger her as they kiss was fine!
Nadira: I'm definitely convinced that Maud detracts from Declan's greatness -- not to mince words, but she is kind of, sort of, 95 percent a bitch! Because of that, I wasn't as into this sex scene as the piano scene because it's about Maud's desires and how she imagines sex with another guy. At a certain point, I don't care what Maud wants in bed with some dude we have only met a few times. But I do love that Declan is considerate in this regard, at least.
Nadira: Tony tells Cameron not to attend the New Year's Eve party, for what one can only assume is a mesh of reasons that includes him wanting to keep his affair private and wanting to maintain as much control over Cameron's life as possible. But Cameron, being the bad bitch that she is, goes anyway and has a lovely evening cozying up with Declan's freshly 21-year-old son, Patrick. When Cameron returns home the next morning, Tony is on her couch, seething because she defied him. Cameron tells Tony that they didn't have sex, and after promising that she won't see Patrick again, Tony coerces her into having sex with him by dangling a promotion -- controller of programmes -- in front of her. "You better fuck me as hard as you can," she tells him, before they kiss.
One thing I like about this show is that they have a character who is willing to sleep her way to the top with no shame about it. But one thing I don't like about this show is the feeling I get whenever Tony -- my beloved David Tennant! -- pops up on the screen for whatever tomfoolery he's about to cause. It is genuinely repulsive to watch this powerful man convince this incredibly talented woman to have sex with him after also demanding nearly full control over who she is allowed to see and where she is allowed to go. At this point in the show, I've never wanted to punch Tony more, and it doesn't help that Cameron and Patrick had some truly delightful scenes together, during which Patrick adores Cameron the way she ought to be.
Rebecca: I found this scene totally off-putting, because Tony is so repugnant, and becoming ever more of an avatar of the chauvinist pig, and then he gets to have sex with this gorgeous woman. But I agree with you that Cameron -- a Black, American, Reagan-voting woman who's very good at her job, and is willing to do what it takes with Tony to move up further -- is a really interesting character. She also seems to genuinely enjoy this sex, which is another wrinkle!
Nadira: Poor Archie, just trying to get his rocks off with a nice, classic handjob from a dopey guy with a hat in the woods -- "receiving manual stimulation from an estate worker" is how his mother, Monica, hilariously refers to the tryst later on -- only to be interrupted by his father, Tony. He does get some semblance of what he wants when he screws the dopey guy's sister up against a tree later in the episode. Hooray for Archie?
Rebecca: Any show about the U.K. is practically bound by law to have class politics mixed into its sex. The Makepieces are working-class residents of Rutshire who show up when they're helping Taggie with her catering gigs, or in the case of their teenage kids, when they're playing around with Archie. I really appreciate how Archie and the teenage son smoke a joint at the same time this handjob is going on, and then later in the episode, Archie and the daughter have sex up against a tree while the daughter eats candy out of a heart-shaped box that he's given her for Valentine's Day. It's a funny little parallel. This show is good at those!
Rebecca: I was so annoyed that Rupert was flying into bed with Cameron after my emotions had been effectively diverted into the Rupert/Taggie ship. I think I've read too many romance novels. This is a controversy among romance readers: Can the hero in a book ever be shown having sex with someone else, even if he ends up with the heroine? Or does that ruin it? Readers on the "It ruins it" side will not enjoy Rupert!
But anyway, Rupert and Cameron are both in Spain for different work reasons, and plot-conveniently end up in hotel rooms on the same floor. They decide to spend a little time together, and Rupert sees a chance to use a liaison with Cameron to do a little industrial espionage in service of Venturer, the company he's put together that's going to challenge Tony's company for the franchise. Also, they are both very hot adults who like to have sex. They end up in bed together, first in the literal bed, and then on the balcony.
I thought these scenes were pretty sexy, despite my annoyance on Taggie's behalf. At one point, as they prepare for round two, Cameron (with admirable directness) tells Rupert that he should pay more attention to her clitoris this time. He replies, "Well yes, I am in the clit-TORY party," which kind of made me want to die, but your mileage may vary!
Nadira: I was also peeved that Rupert was basically like, "Screw Taggie for a moment, I've got to go screw Cameron for work espionage." But I think one thing I love about Rupert and Taggie is that they do actually seem like the only two people in the show who really understand each other. Taggie might be upset when she eventually hears about Rupert and Cameron, but she gets it, because she knows Rupert is ruthless in his pursuit of what he wants. She puts her "I can fix him" pants on and gets to work chastising him before offering him sweets as reconciliation. So I wasn't that annoyed to see Rupert and Cameron having the time of their lives in Spain. I find it sort of hilarious how universal and timeless the question "Am I the first Black woman you've fucked?" is, but Cameron still manages to ask. Rupert wittily fires back with a less classic, yet even better question: "Am I your first Olympian?" It's fun! They're cute! It is also deeply funny that Rupert and Cameron's boiling sex scene is spliced with scenes of Tony and his wife having the most vanilla sex ever.
As for the balcony scene, my main question was: Did we really used to pronounce the word clitoris that way? Cli-tor-is?
Nadira: I realized that, in all of our googly-eyed talk about Taggie and Rupert, we haven't talked about the curse Declan placed on them. OK, I'm being dramatic, but protective dad Declan basically forbids Rupert from getting with Taggie, and Rupert decides that, for once in his life, he wants to try to be a good boy. So this dream sequence serves as a callback to an earlier scene of Rupert showing restraint by refusing to take one of Taggie's roly-poly pastries. Taggie dreams that she meets Rupert once again, only this time, Rupert takes the roly-poly, which Taggie watches him eat closely as he nearly has a culinary orgasm. If you didn't know this was a dream when the scene started, you're certain it is when Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is" plays in the background as Rupert gently lays Taggie down in a clearing of flowers and kisses her slowly and softly. It's all rom-com fluff of decades gone by until Rupert starts licking Taggie's face repeatedly. Taggie abruptly wakes up to her dog, Gertrude, licking her face. Taggie, girl, control it!
This scene wasn't hot, but it was certainly hilarious. When the cheesy music and slow-mo romance shots occur, when Rupert nearly takes Taggie's entire hand into his mouth, when he starts playing dog and licks her face, you can't help but wonder: How did the actors keep their composure for long enough to get a solid take?
Rebecca: Agree about how funny this was. It also did another service for the plot, which is to remind us that Taggie, age 20 and living at home with her parents, has had only one lover in the past. Bella Maclean has a very fresh and innocent face, but the dream tells us Taggie is not just acting like a babe in the woods -- she is one, and she can't even get what she wants out of her own subconscious. This show's ability to toggle between slow burn and quickies remains undefeated.
Rebecca: It's spring, as Rupert says to Cameron when she approaches him on the grounds of his estate. "First of May, first of May, outdoor fucking starts today," he quotes a poem to her. "God, you Brits are weird," she says, and it's montage time for us! The Makepieces are doing it missionary in a barn, with chickens pecking around; Basil and an unidentified rando are doing it on a hay bale; Tony's kid and the Makepiece boy are doing it up against a golf cart; James Vereker and Sarah Stratton seem to have stopped their car in a field to go at it. I really admire this show's commitment to showing people of every age having sex. And also, you Brits are apparently weird!
Nadira: No one told me about this when I was studying abroad in England! Should I feel some type of way about that?
Rebecca: We haven't even mentioned the building affection between Freddie, the tech mogul who's always introducing interesting new things like "word processors" and "karaoke machines" to the Rutshire populace, and Lizzie Vereker, the romance novelist and mom. They're both in unhappy marriages with spouses who police their food intake, and have enjoyed sneaking off at parties and eating cake together. They almost have sex earlier in the series, going so far as to set up a hotel room rental, but Lizzie is too loyal to her stupid husband to do it. They are so sweet and seem to genuinely enjoy one another, and I cheered when, 10 minutes before the end of the final episode, they finally sneak away from a party, off into the fields, and get to it.
This is far from the first outdoor sex scene we get, but it was really great that they set this scene against a backdrop of trees, because Lizzie and Freddie are being set free by this. When Freddie pours some champagne on Lizzie's chest and says, "I declare this an area of outstanding natural beauty," it was so cheesy and so sweet, I screamed a little. Am I just middle-aged and susceptible to middle-aged people reclaiming their mojo, or was this really just great?
Nadira: No, it was really just that great! I can't express how much affection I have for these two! Danny Dyer is also a Skins alum, and Katherine Parkinson is lovable in everything, but particularly the film The Boat That Rocked (one of my favorites). I never would have thought to pair these two actors together, but this show proves that I would have missed out on something so charming and swoonworthy. I love these two middle-aged people getting what they want outside of their marriages, mostly because their spouses are rather intolerable. They're so heartwarming together, and they remind me that settling doesn't have to be the end of your story.
Nadira: Look, this show is great and worth watching for a number of reasons, but I have been waiting to see if Rupert and Taggie would finally get together. After eight episodes of watching this grown man and this much younger woman fall in love (I know, I know), I was hoping they'd just go for it. I sincerely thought they'd just hop into bed together after a moment of sexual tension that would reach a fever pitch, but they instead confess their love to each other. Sure, the words "but he's/she's not you" have been uttered before, as have the words "I can't breathe without you," but they sound so sweet here in a show that has scant other sources of saccharine joy. Rupert ever so gently puts his hands on Taggie's waist to turn her around for a very passionate, yet still somewhat gentle, kiss. Me? I cheered so loud I might have scared my neighbors.
Rebecca: I, a severe hater of age-gap relationships, apparently have a different thing going on in my subconscious, because I was extremely Tagpert-pilled, so much so that I lobbied to include a completely nonsexual scene in which Taggie gets in a fender bender, then gets out of the car and sobs in Rupert's arms, in this Sex Review. (TikTok's Taggie/Rupert shippers agree with me.) As the time left in this episode ticked on, I realized we wouldn't get the two in bed, but this kiss in the kitchen was quite cathartic. I am very curious to see whether they make it into a true clinch in Season 2.
Rebecca: Now is the time in Sex Reviews when we Judge. I find myself in a bind here. For me, the overall experience of watching Rivals was a 10/10. But we are not judging the show on that; we are judging the show on how hot-to-trot it left us. And in that department, I think this show is a little bit too funny for me. I've learned a lot about myself! Apparently, my libido is very serious, and also somehow okay with fortysomething playboys dating 20-year-olds. Who knew? I rate Rivals a 5.
Nadira: I completely agree, Rebecca! Some of the sex scenes were super hot, but overall the show was more well-rounded in the comedy and drama departments than I expected it to be. It makes for a better show, but a lower-ranking Sex Review. I would gobble up four more seasons of this, but as for how sweaty it made me? I'm also giving Rivals a 5.